outdoors The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has declared 13 lakes in Northeastern Minnesota where its band members will spear walleyes this spring.
Cloquet, 55720

Cloquet Minnesota 122 Avenue C 55720

2014-04-12 15:33:53

Sam Cook

Forum News Service

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The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has declared 13 lakes in Northeastern Minnesota where its band members will spear walleyes this spring.

Two of the lakes are in St. Louis County, three in Lake County and eight in Cook County.

This marks the first time the Fond du Lac Band — or any band — has formally speared walleyes on lakes in Northeastern Minnesota under treaty rights. The lakes are part of the 1854 ceded territory, where the Fond du Lac, Bois Forte and Grand Portage bands’ rights to hunt, fish and gather are guaranteed under an 1854 treaty. Those rights have been affirmed in federal court.

The Bois Forte and Grand Portage bands will not spear walleyes in the 1854 treaty area. In some recent years, the Fond du Lac Band has netted walleyes on Mille Lacs and other lakes under their rights affirmed in an 1837 treaty.

About 70 of the Fond du Lac Band’s 4,200 members have signed up to spear walleyes in the 1854 ceded territory this spring, said Brian Borkholder, fisheries biologist for the Fond du Lac Band. The lakes and quotas were declared after meetings with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The DNR does not have a formal agreement with the band, but the two parties regularly discuss plans for managing fish and wildlife in the 1854 ceded territory.

“Their biologists wanted to identify lakes away from Duluth and off the beaten path,” said Don Pereira, DNR chief of fisheries. “They want to keep it low-key, which is good.”

The DNR did not object to any of the lakes in which the band wanted to spear, Pereira said.

“If we felt any of those harvest levels constituted a conservation issue, we would have objected to them,” he said.

Spearing will take place on just two lakes per night, Borkholder said.

The Fond du Lac Band’s natural resources department has been studying and monitoring walleye populations on many lakes across the 1854 ceded territory for nearly 20 years. The DNR and the band annually coordinate assessment activities on lakes within the ceded territory to gain a better picture of the walleye populations. They share this information annually.

In most cases, the spearing quotas on lakes the Fond du Lac Band has declared represent about 0.2 walleyes per acre, the DNR’s Pereira said.

“So, on a 100-acre lake, it would be 20 fish,” he said.

On other lakes, where more recent survey data is available, allocations are somewhat higher and based on actual population estimates.

When band members begin spearing depends on the progress of spring.

“First, the ice has to leave the lake,” Martineau said.

In most years, the window of spearing opportunity would be from about the third week of April to the first week of May, he said. The band has agreed not to be spearing during opening weekend of the Minnesota fishing season, May 10-11, Martineau said.

The band will have a biologist monitoring spearing on the lakes, Martineau said, and accounting for each fish taken.

“We figure out a quota. Let’s say it’s 100 fish on a lake,” Martineau said. “If there are 25 people spearing, they’ll each get four fish.”

The DNR also will monitor the harvest on the lakes and will adjust limits for state anglers if that’s deemed necessary, Pereira said.

“I think that’s unlikely,” he said. “It would also depend on how quickly they’d want to go back in there and harvest again. We’ll have to wait and see.”

If band members harvest 90 percent or more of their quota on any lake this spring, the band would not spear again on that lake for two years, Martineau said.

“We’re not going to push any of the populations,” he said. “We’re not trying to ruin that population. We’re just trying to use it like every other sportsman does.”

Law enforcement officials from the Fond du Lac Band, the DNR and county sheriffs offices will be present at landings where spearing is conducted this spring, said Tom Provost, DNR regional wildlife supervisor at Grand Rapids.

“This is the first year of this going on, and we need to do what we can to help them pull it off without any issues,” Provost said.